Before We Spoke
Vera Caldwell
The courtyard is bluing with evening
as the remaining light softly collects
in a far corner, sets the white trunk
of a crepe myrtle glowing.
A girl leans out of her open window,
staring at the tree’s flaking silver bark.
Things we now share: the object of our gaze,
the eddying breeze, the cleansing effect
of dissociation and re-recognition.
I am hungry for gossamer but swallow
it down. One could construct a poem from
questions, from lacunae: what’s
the last sunset you remember? What were
your other iterations like? How is your sister?
as the remaining light softly collects
in a far corner, sets the white trunk
of a crepe myrtle glowing.
A girl leans out of her open window,
staring at the tree’s flaking silver bark.
Things we now share: the object of our gaze,
the eddying breeze, the cleansing effect
of dissociation and re-recognition.
I am hungry for gossamer but swallow
it down. One could construct a poem from
questions, from lacunae: what’s
the last sunset you remember? What were
your other iterations like? How is your sister?
Vera Caldwell (PO '26) is a senior at Pomona College who has been previously published in The Agave Review, Blue Marble, and Parallax.